


The Watcher

by shadowsamurai



Category: Men in Black (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowsamurai/pseuds/shadowsamurai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kay might be gone, but Jay still watches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Watcher

**Author's Note:**

> Jay-centric. Set between Men In Black and Men In Black 2. Contains spoilers for both films.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, I'm just borrowing things for a while and I promise I'll put everything back exactly how I found it when I've finished. Well, almost exactly how I found it. ;)

MIB-MIB-MIB-MIB-MIB-MIB

It was when his new partner, A, said that he needed to work on his socialisation skills that Jay realised something was wrong. He spent a long time looking at himself in the mirror after that comment, wondering if he had really changed that much.

Sure, after Kay sprang the news he wanted to be neuralysed and that Jay was his replacement, not his partner, the younger man had tried his hardest to fit in and learn everything he could about MIB and the work they did. He wanted to be the best of the best of the best, so he worked and trained harder and longer than anyone else.

But in the back of his mind, Jay knew he wanted to be better than Kay, or at least as good. That man had no style or grace, and he made a piece of driftwood look like the life and soul of a party, but through living, eating, breathing and sleeping the job, Kay had made himself the most feared human in the galaxy. And Jay wanted everyone to know that he was just as good as that.

Of course it didn't work out like that. Jay ended up becoming the most feared human inside MIB headquarters, partly due to his newly acquired bad temper, and partly because of his trigger-happy use of the neuralyser. In fact, Zed had been so concerned over his agent's behaviour that he had sent Jay to the newest addition to MIB: a shrink.

Jay poured his heart out in the first session and felt better for it, at least for a few minutes. Then he sighed, put his shades on and neuralysed the shrink. Zed gave up at that point.

When L decided to leave MIB, Jay thought he'd feel lonely. It took him a long time to realise he already did and had done since Kay left. So one day he took off for Massachusetts, intent on doing nothing but checking everything was alright in his old partner's…in his one friend's life.

It was no secret where Kay was. MIB kept a record of all agents who had been neuralysed and where they were living (or buried if dead), and besides, Jay had been the one to take Kay to his new life.

At first everything seemed alright. Kay had a job in the small post office, the kind where two people was a queue, and everyone knew everyone's business. He was happily married, lived in a nice little house, and slept in on the weekends.

But Jay knew something was wrong. Maybe he just wanted something to be wrong to make himself feel better, to make the loneliness seem less obvious, but as Jay watched Kay, he knew he was right.

When he wasn't working, that was all Jay seemed to do: watch. He watched as Kay would spend hours staring up at the night sky, a permanent frown on his face as though he knew more about what was happening up there than down on Earth.

Jay watched, powerless to intervene, as Kay's wife grew more and more frustrated with her husband's behaviour until finally, one day, she left him. But Kay still seemed more interested in the stars than his own life.

Sometimes Jay would think about talking to Kay; sometimes he almost did. But he knew if he did, he wouldn't be able to neuralyse him afterwards. In two long days, Kay had become a lynchpin in Jay's life and with the older man now absent, Jay had taken to mimicking Kay. Perhaps it was subconscious, perhaps not, but soon it was Jay's name that echoed around the halls of MIB. Kay was still remembered, but with a more revered state that comes with being a legend. Jay became Zed's best agent, and Jay felt less need to watch Kay as time went by.

At the back of his mind, though, Jay always hoped that one day they would have reason to bring Kay back and deneuralyse him. Then Jay could go back to being the new hotness and leave Kay to be old and busted; as it was, Jay was new busted hotness all on his own and he didn't like it much.

But invasions and plagues and battleships came and went, and Jay was forced to solve the problems on his own. He spent more and more time in the gym, and less time around people of any race.

Then one day, Zed told him he was getting a new partner. Jay looked hopeful; after L went back to the morgue and A - well, the less said about that the better - it was time he had a decent partner.

And what did he end up with? T. As they drove to see why Jeff had left his designated area, Jay decided that the universe hated him. And after five years, he could see no reason why Kay would be brought back now.

But that didn't stop Jay from watching him occasionally.

FIN


End file.
